A total of 465 randomly choose unrelated
individuals
of Valle del Belice sheep breed were studied.
All the individuals had a normal phenotype.
Blood samples were collected using Vacutainer tubes containing EDTA as anticoagulant.
Genomic DNA was extracted from buffy coats of nucleated cells using a salting out method
(Miller etal.,1988).
The PCR-SSCP (Polymerase Chain Reaction-Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism) protocol developed by Finocchiaro et al.(2003a)
was used to detect the genotype (CCorCT) at position 1312 bp in exon 3 of the
hr gene.